Studies have shown that abusing prescription pills can lead to abusing drugs such as heroin.
Experts have developed a new tool in the fight to curb addiction by addressing prescription-pill abuse.
The device is called a “TimerCap” and each time it is screwed on to a bottle, it begins to count up.
The cap serves two purposes. First, it lets you know the last time you took a dose of medication, which will help avoid accidental overdoses. The second purpose, according to creators is that it alerts you if someone else has opened the bottle.
“If somebody already has some addiction issues in their household, the TimerCap probably is not the best solution,” said Larry Twersky, TimerCap LLC CEO. “People should seek treatment for it. We’re not seeing the TimerCap is your soul solution. It’s a complicated issue. This is a first level of safety.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 53 percent of teens who abused pain killers got them from a friend or a relative. In many instances, the pill bottle was found in plain sight.
The timing feature of the TimerCap records the time, to the second, that the bottle was last opened.
Different pharmacies often use different pill bottles, but CVS, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid all sell their own version of timer caps.
